Saturday, November 18, 2006

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Whats new in my world? well i have just returned from a kayak mission round the world with B and had a wicked time. Paddled in California, Canada, Uganda and Zambia before returning home for a summer of work and hopefully some play. So we left NZ in June and made our way to Coloma, CA where we met up with some more kiwi boys and paddled some cool stuff!
Upper cherry creek was the highlight of the california section and cant wait to get back there in 2007.

We then made our way up to BC where we picked up some play boats on the way and met up with Rally pat and had a great few nights party'n hard with the master of night life!! Rally showed us round a small town called Golden and introduced us to the wild side of the place too.
Unfortunatly he subluxed his shoulder just before the crux section of the kicking horse under the bridge so me and B paddled out alone while Rally hitched back into town.

From here it was a further few days on a bus to meet up with another party and kayak Guru, louise urwin on the Ottawa river. We made it into town very early but lou was ready for the pick up and she took us back to the "GROTTO" for a bit more sleep then a great feed at the local.

We were now set up at Wilderness Tours (raft base) and had met up with the junior kiwi boys and it was time to train! the lines were so long that it wasnt really training but more eddy flowering practice!
World Cup started and I ended up better than i thought comming 22nd out of about 60 and could have done better if my rides were both good, instead 1 barely scored.
It was now on to Uganda where we met up with all round 'nice guys' thatcher, walker and tyler and took the river by storm and the BAR too!!! the rapids were amazing and the locals were so kind. we made a lot of good friends on the nile including Tim, The Ozzy girls, The english mullet crew(you know who u r!!), Charley and all the soft power crew!! also Dan and the local boys at the gate!! and not to forget the Boda Boda (scooter taxi) drivers!!!

the nile was beautiful and cant wait to go back!
ALSO a big THANK YOU to my amazing Doctor/mum/friend Aliya for looking after me when i got maliria!! she was the best!
so with maliria in full swing i made it on a plane to zambia where we met up with soph and hucked ourselves into big waves on the zambezi river
here we were paddling with another great crew, organised by thezambezi.com.

Sven and sam made it easy for us to paddle and showed us the lines. Also a big holla out to Johnny, Brad, the deago's, kenny you all made our time great in livingstone!!
We saw some Wild Wildlife which was great, hippos, crocs, elephants, zebras, rhinos, giraffe etc etc..
then on my birthday i was woken to B throwing up in to camp toilet which was not to pleasent.. that day we finally made our flight out to south africa where we missed our connecting flight to sydney because of earlier delays. they put us in a nice hotel for the night and we enjoyed nice real beds and good food, both me and B too sick to be able to take full advantage of FREE everything!!! gutted
we then got on a plane and with some good sleeping pills woke up in sydney and on to a train out to see joe, em and eckles. a couple of great nights out in the valley and we were back on a plane to NZ. out of customs to be greated with the smiling faces of Ma and Pa. great to see them and now a long 6hr drive back to the Bay! great to be home but not happy to be back working!
Thanks to everyone we met along the way!! we had a blast!
catch ya soon
josh-